The First Week

Here we are, one week into the New Year, and the mileage graph is already looking quite pleasing:

I’ve already, in seven days, beaten my January mileages from 4 of the 8 years on record, and looking at the detail of the best January on record, at this point I had only taken 2 walks, totalling 23 miles, compared with this year’s 7 walks totalling 48.5 miles.

Whilst very pleased with the achievement to date, I’m not taking it as any indication that a record month is going to ensue. There’s always the danger that the lure of a chair will prove too great for my willpower.

I’ve already written about the first walk of the year, and the second and third were entirely unnoteworthy(being bimbles in very close vicinity to home). The fourth saw my area of adventure increase as my route drew a 10-and-a-bit-mile circle around the village (involving mainly-mud-free tracks and little lanes).

Not the best illustration due to the distance, but the white dots you see show that the farmer seems to be growing swans in this field. Bit soggy in the foreground too – happily, there’s a good track adjacent to this field.

One of the tiny lanes was surprisingly well frequented by ignorant drivers (including the ignoramus who thought it appropriate to drive at speed through the puddle I was passing…) but the main thing occupying my mind (apart from my audio book) was the limited number of routes one can walk immediately from home that don’t involve muddy-wallows-from-hell or overly-busy lanes. How was I going to walk through January without getting incredibly bored of doing the same things over and over again?

It was in passing a graveyard that I had a flash of (morbid) inspiration and thus on Sunday morning I was to be found wandering over to the National Memorial Arboretum. The Arboretum is well worth a visit, if you’re passing and have never been, but I would caution against going at times when the word ‘flood’ is appearing frequently in the news, as it is sited on the flood plain right next to the River Trent. It wasn’t too bad for my visit, but some areas were under water:

Fortunately, there are sufficient surfaced paths about the arboretum that I could avoid the subaquatic ones, which wasn’t the case with one of the tracks I used on my way there.

I was probably at the arboretum for half an hour or so, fifteen minutes of which were spent looking for two particular names in the 1952 section of the Armed Forces Memorial (over 1100 members of the UK armed forces died in service in 1952, you know; I read all of their names on Sunday, but didn’t find the ones for which I was looking) and in that time I didn’t see a soul apart from staff and volunteers. It was so eerily devoid of visitors that I was beginning to wonder whether it was actually open (as I’d entered via a Right of Way at the side, rather than through the main entrance, it wouldn’t have been beyond possibility).

Monday dawned and I was scrabbling through my mental maps to think of something novel to do, when I pondered the fact that there’s another village 2 or 3 miles distant that I’ve never explored, and I’m quite fond of poking around villages, so that was my objective for the day. Views from the canal towpath en-route confirmed my suspicions that one of my regular routes is currently impassable with deep mires and flood water.

That brings us to today and my answer as to where to walk today was given to me by another blogger, who mentioned that her uncle had an art exhibition going on in our local town library. Going to see it seemed to be as good an objective as any for the day, and I could kill two birds with one stone and take a look at some maps whilst I was there.

The only issue I could see was that there was no way I could walk to town (other than by walking the roads, which I was not prepared to do) without being muddy, and walking through town attired in winter walking garb always attracts stares, and far worse so when I’m covered in mud. I pondered the possible solutions and accordingly took with me gaiters to don when the going got muddy and clean shoes to change into when I approached town. I brought both back with me unworn. I got stared at a lot as I walked, mud-spattered, through town. I got stared at even more as I sat (muddy) in the library with many maps open in front of me. Hey ho. I didn’t see anyone I know, and I’ve now got three possible draft routes for a section of this year’s Big Walk that has been troubling me.

(It’s entirely my own fault that I don’t currently have transport and thus my walking is limited to the local vicinity. However, the MOT is booked for tomorrow, so provided that it passes, I will have wheels again. Unfortunately, it’s only the lack of transport that has stopped me from returning to work thus far, and working will far greatly reduce my outings than the lack of a car has. Harrumph.)

Gratuitous Graphs of 2013

The walking record of 2013 has been so disappointing that I wasn’t going to bother with a round-up of the year’s stats. However, the graphs are all generated, so here are just a small smattering of illustrations of how the year shaped up.

I only walked 666 miles in 2013 (involving 17 nights in a tent, 32 nights in Colin and 31 summits of one kind or another). That’s my lowest mileage year since I gave up full-time employment in 2007 (although, in my defence, this is also the first year since I gave up full-time employment that I have found myself employed for the entire calendar year). This is how 2013 stacked up with previous years:

Here is how the mileage stacked up month-by-month:

And let’s not forget the ascent figures (I don’t have annual comparisons, but I’m sure that this year saw more ascent-per-mile than the norm):

Picking out a couple of the highlights of 2013’s stats, February (of which we spent the majority holidaying in Scotland) was a pretty good month when compared with previous years:

August is a month when typically the miles start to fall drastically, but this year was different. The total number of miles for the month may not have been large, but it was my best August on record:

This was a year with an incredibly nice summer and, thanks to Mick’s outings on Pennine Way (where I went and joined him at the end of each week), I got to enjoy some of the hot sunshine. Even so, my claims at having become a fair-weather walker weren’t entirely borne out by the stats:

In case the ink isn’t showing up against the background, the dark purple segment is ‘snow’.

My resolution for 2013 was that I wasn’t going to buy any new walking shoes, but rather would make inroads into wearing out some of my existing extensive collection. This one illustrates the shoes I favoured this year:

The number after the description denotes how many of that shoe I’ve owned (so, for example, I’m on my sixth pair of Terrocs)

I kept to my resolution and despite being sorely tempted by some good offers, I didn’t add any new footwear* to the collection and I have ended the year with a couple of pairs fewer than I started. The resolution is not going to be extended; most of my shoes are very close to the end of their useful lives and aren’t fit for the lengths of walk I have pencilled in for next year.

I always suspected that this year was going to be a bit of a walking write-off, so I didn’t set myself a mileage target. For next year I’m going to be bold (just by the fact that I’m publishing a target) but modest (in the size of that target). In 2014 I’m aiming for 1100 miles, with a secret (but perhaps unrealistic) aspiration to break 1825 again.

(* I’m not counting socks as ‘footwear’ even though they clearly are. I saw an absolutely bargain on x-socks earlier in the year, just a couple of weeks after I had been bemoaning the sorry, worn-out state of my collection, and took advantage of the bargain.)

The (Raging) Torrent Walk

The local forecast for Wednesday 1 January was for incessant rain the whole day through. Combined with Friday’s forecast for even more rain, but carried on wind gusting to 70+mph, we decided that home was probably the most sensible place for us to head.

Mick looked at me with incredulity when I announced my plan for a walk on the way. Then he looked outside at the lashing rain. Then he cocked an ear at the sound that was not so much a ‘pitter patter’ as ‘buckets of water being thrown’. I reassured him that my plan was for a very short walk and that I had no problem with him sitting in Colin reading his book if he so chose.

He didn’t so choose, and half an hour later off we set off on a walk that I struggle to fathom how I’ve never come to walk before. The Torrent Walk is advertised on Snowdonia National Park’s website as being 2.5 miles long and it lies about 150 yards off a road that I have travelled along hundreds of times over the last 28 years. I always knew it was there, so why had I never spared an hour to go and take a look at it? Still, better late than never, and arguably a wet spell in winter (lots of water; lack of tree cover; lack of people) is a good time to go, although a crisp sunny day during a wet spell would be even better.

It’s seldom that we have walked in rain quite that heavy, but the torrents distracted us from quite how wet it was:

The weather wasn’t conducive to more than a couple of quick snaps, which really don’t do justice to the torrents

It’s a simple route, which goes down one side of the (raging) river, crosses over it and then comes back up the other side. As an added bonus for us, somewhere on the upward leg the rain temporarily eased to the point of almost stopping.

What was always going to be a short outing turned out to be shorter than expected. I know not what method the National Park Authority used to measure the route but our experience suggests that it’s woefully inaccurate. Judging by the time we took, our Garmin-Gadget read-out and subsequent plotting, it was barely more than a couple of hundred yards over 1.75 miles, rather than the advertised 2.5. It must be the shortest ‘first walk of the New Year’ I’ve ever taken – but surely even 1.75 miles is better than nothing?

Precipitous Perambulations

Looking at the map on Monday night, I came up with two possible plans for Tuesday (31 December), both of which were nice and sensible and made good use of rights of way in the area. Then, as Tuesday dawned, the old Precipice Walk popped into my mind and after a perusal of the map it was declared to be the outing of choice for the day.

Rather than setting out from the nearest car park, my plan involved us walking from Colin’s pitch in Dolgellau, which also introduced a potential flaw in the plan in that it didn’t make good use of rights of way, but instead indulged in rather a lot of trespass. However, it was trespass along tracks and paths that didn’t appear to pass in front of any buildings, so it looked get-away-with-able. Alas, at the first gate there was a very clear ‘preifat’ and ‘don’t even think about coming this way’ sort of a sign and Mick was having an uncharacteristic attack of antitrespassism, and so we walked a road and trespassed up an alternative route along an ancient lane where no such signage had been installed.

Aside from a bit of a thrash past an overgrown laurel which was making a take-over bid across the entire width of the last twenty yards of the track, it was a lovely old green lane and a shame that it can’t be lawfully enjoyed by the masses. Tarmac then saw us to our main objective of the day.

It must be twelve or thirteen years since we last walked the old Precipice Walk and it’s still as pleasing a route as ever. We joined the walk at the S end of Llyn Cynwch, which was looking quite lovely:

Moreover when a bit of blue sky appeared:

Having enjoyed our sandwiches alongside the water (before we skirted around onto the sunless side of the hill), off we headed to the precipitous bit of the walk (it’s dead flat, but along quite a steep hillside), where the views were stunning in both directions.

Looking down the Mawddach

Having drunk in all of the views, we headed back down on our intended upwards path. Yes, it involved just as much trespass as it would have on the outwards leg, but there weren’t signs warning us against on the way back down, so it felt more justifiable. We left no trace, met no angry farmer and made it back to the lane unscathed – whereupon we promptly crossed the road and indulged in some more brazen trespass across the golf course. We didn’t encounter anyone there either.

In fact, the only people we saw out and about were those on the Precipice Walk itself, where there were many.

Our stats for the day were 8.2 miles walked with around 1600’ of ascent.

An Excellent Navigational Display in Coed-y-Brenin

As the rain lashed down on Monday lunchtime (30 December) we sat in the comfort of Colin and watched a convoy of cars arrive into the car park where we had already been procrastinating for a good ten minutes. A quantity of parents and an even larger quantity of children unloaded themselves and, with full waterproofs, off they set.

We applauded the attitude of ‘Sod the weather, we’re taking the children for a walk anyway’, questioned whether doing so was more likely to lead to a love or a hatred of the outdoors, and made ourselves another cup of tea.

Tea was drunk and it became clear that we had made as much headway as was possible with the crossword so the procrastination had to come to an end. Our delaying tactic had worked insofar as the lashing rain was now just ordinary rain.

An easy forest track warmed us up before we reached the path that was going to lead us up. Gosh, I’m unfit! But, every slog up a hill like this one (which wasn’t big, although it was quite steep) is nudging my muscles back into some semblance of shape.

Steepness!

Mick, striding on, soon opens a big gap between us (he did eventually notice my absence and wait)

Only a few paces after we reached the top of our climb we started descending again, once again on a forest track.

“Should we be zig-zagging like this?” I queried on the way down (a rhetorical question, as Mick hadn’t looked at the map), but I wasn’t moved to check. The hill we had been up was small enough that it didn’t much matter where we landed on the other side (although, in all honesty, even my question didn’t make any alarm bells ring that we might be awry from our intended route).

Coming upon a bothy was a bit of a surprise, as I hadn’t noticed that it was on our route – but then I hadn’t been looking at buildings when I was planning. Of course, we popped our heads in, even though we had been there before, and who should we find in the living room, with a good fire going, but the parents and children who set off whilst we were still sitting out the lashing rain. A walk in the woods, followed by lunch in a bothy beside a fire, followed by a walk in the woods: I bet by the end of the day those children had forgotten all about the morning’s rain. (The rain had stopped somewhere just before we reached the bothy and it stayed stopped for the rest of our outing.)

It wasn’t until we got to a junction of paths that shouldn’t have been there that I finally looked at the map and realised that the bothy hadn’t been on our route and that we had taken the wrong track right back at the top of the hill. We had added a small bit of distance onto what was always going to be a short walk, and hadn’t even noticed until we were within twenty paces of being back on track. My considered opinion is that the reality of the outing was better than the plan!

A road walk back to Colin was avoided by making use of footpaths that don’t exist on the map and before we knew it we were back to where we started.

It was only 3.25 miles, with 800’ of up, but considering the miserable conditions, it was a nice little outing.

Over The Top

When I lived on the hillside above Barmouth, a reference to ‘going over the top’ meant that you were going for a walk up the side of Dinas Oleu and over the hillside beyond. It mattered not what route was taken or how far you walked; if you were walking in between Old Barmouth and the transmitter mast then you were going over the top.

And that’s what we did on Sunday (29 December), rather unimaginatively taking almost exactly the same route as we did in October.

‘Twas a nice day for it, and warm indeed when in the sunshine and out of the wind.

The only variation on our previous outing was that we dropped down slightly further along the coast, at Llanaber, where we had a wander around the huge graveyard next to the little chapel, before heading onto the shingle beach for the walk back to our start point.

That’s just a small part of the old section of the graveyard

Being such a lovely day it’s a shame (in hindsight) that we didn’t go a bit further over the top. As it was, we covered just shy of 6 miles with 1200’ of up.

On The Sea Shore

Having arrived in Barmouth on Saturday afternoon (28 December), and with an hour left until sunset, off I dragged us for a walk on the beach.

The flaw in my plan was that the tide was in and there was no beach to be seen at our end of the prom:

We had good fun watching the sea as we dodged drenchings all the way down into the town and back, arriving back to the campsite just as the sun dipped behind the horizon.

A New Jacket, A Fitbit and the Biggest Mudfest Ever Seen

I must have been a good girl over the last year, as Father Christmas brought me not just a new Paramo Velez Adventure Jacket but also a Fitbit.

Trying out the new jacket (it had rained earlier in the walk!)

The Velez is a replacement for my aged orange one which has given me many year’s good service. There’s actually nothing wrong with that orange one, but its purchase pre-dated both the ladies’ version and the fixed-hooded version; the hood has always annoyed me (trying to get those poppers done up with two or three pairs of gloves on is trying at best) and the size has always been rather on the baggy side (the unisex XS was generous in its sizing).

I wasn’t aware that I wanted a Fitbit (which is essentially a pedometer, but a bit cleverer than your average pedometer) until I received one, and it’s already started doing its job, as my walk on Boxing Day wouldn’t have occurred if I didn’t have a device about my person which was recording my every movement. Sitting in the chair the whole day long wasn’t going to give me a pleasing graph to look at come the end of the day, so I pulled myself out of my chair and off onto the local estate I took myself.

Incredibly, for a walk that I have repeated dozens upon dozens of times, this was only the third repetition this year. For many months of the year it’s a very nice walk but on this occasion it was hideous. Really, really, truly hideous.

There’s a reason that I don’t walk over there at this time of year and it’s because it turns into the worst mudfest ever seen. Somehow, in deciding to eschew the village streets and head across-country I had convinced myself that (in spite of the recent dampness) it wouldn’t be too bad. Just to clarify: it was awful.

I searched for an old photo of the really muddy bit of that route, but couldn’t find one. So here’s a random photo of the old orange jacket, taken 4 years ago on a walk that was more soggy than muddy.

Three quarters of the way around I was so fed up of slogging up to my ankles in mud that I took the opportunity to hop over a bit of fallen fence into a National Forest plantation, which gave me much better walking. The only problem was that when I got to the bottom of the slope I found that there wasn’t a way back out of the plantation. And so, with darkness falling, I found myself on the third edge of the rectangle still searching for a way out and wondering whether I was going to complete the full circuit back to the fallen fence. I located a way out eventually and it landed me in a field almost as muddy as the path from which I had escaped when I got into the plantation.

With just over 4 miles walked (I hate to think how slowly, given the conditions), back home I headed swearing that I won’t be heading out that way again until there has been a dry spell or unless there is a very hard frost.

(Incidentally, I didn’t wear the new jacket for this walk. I wore the old orange one. I’ve had a few incidents of muddy-pawed dogs jumping up me on this route and didn’t want to risk getting my shiny new jacket dirty on its very first outing.)

Martin’s Christmas Walk 2013

I’m a little behind myself here, so there will follow a bit of catch-up. It won’t take many posts as my walks-per-month statistic has only perked up marginally during December.

First up was Martin’s Christmas walk, way back on 8 December, which I did in a slightly different order to the rest of the 23 participants. It was only a couple of days before the walk that I became sure that I would be free on the Sunday, and even then I only had the morning to spare, so I arrived early, parked just down the road from the lunch venue and hot-footed it towards the start point, hoping to make it before the 10.15 departure time.

Onto the Monsal Trail (ex-railway line) I went and very soon was faced with a tunnel that I didn’t expect to see. Yes, I did know that there was a re-opening of a tunnel or tunnels on this line a while ago, but it hadn’t occurred to me that I may come across one, because there was no indication of it on my map.

I didn’t encounter anyone else walking through the tunnels. Alan Rayner, who has kindly allowed me free use of his photos from the day, apparently did.

Some dithering occurred whilst I contemplated where it would come out (‘the other side of the hill’ was my best guess…) and whether it would be useful to me, before I had the presence of mind to look at the information board that lay about five paces away from me.

Confirmation that the tunnels represented a handy short-cut

My conclusion was that the tunnel (or, as it turned out, tunnels) would be useful to me, and so through them I went, cutting off a good chunk of distance and giving myself some impressive engineering to admire. The cutting off of distance was particularly welcome as I was getting a bit concerned that I was running late.

Running a bit late shouldn’t have been an issue, as Martin’s walk was lollipop shaped, and thus I should have been guaranteed to meet the rabble on the stick of the lollipop even if I didn’t get to the start in time. What I hadn’t realised was that there’s a high route and a low route along that valley, and whereas I took the high route (huffing and puffing up a hillside, ruing my lack of fitness and looking over at an even bigger hillside I knew I would need to huff up a little later) Martin’s walk was taking the lower.

As it went, I made it to the car park with a good four minutes to spare before the call was made for a group photo, then off we went, down the valley, across the river, back up onto the Monsal Trail and then up the ridiculously-steep hillside opposite. I gasped a lot and took many an opportunity to admire the views on the latter stretch.

The first incline got me warmed up…

…the second half saw me out-and-out gasping, but the pauses allowed me to appreciate the view.

My description of the walk has to get a bit sketchy at this point because, as is my wont on Martin’s Christmas Walk, I did lots of chatting and almost no paying of attention to the surroundings. It was lovely to catch up with Alan & Sheila who also kindly agreed to let me use their photos in this post, as (proving once again that I should never leave the house without running through a check-list first) I had forgotten my camera.

Chatting!

In amongst the sketchiness, I definitely remember a tea-break where I gratefully sampled Sue’s CCS and Sheila’s flapjack (checking twice just to confirm that it was good ) and I assume that after the up there must have been some along and maybe some down, because we ended up back alongside the river.

A weir featured then a narrow path through woodland, and it must have been just after there that we reached the Monsal Head Hotel, which was the lunch venue.

Big weir!

Alas, I wasn’t able to stay for lunch, so after a brief pause, I tootled over the viaduct and back to the car.

(For those who have noticed Mick’s absence on this walk, he was excused due to being on a plane on his way to Israel at the time. His considered opinion was that a walk from Monsal Head would be greatly preferable to five hours on an EasyJet flight!).

The stats for the day were 9.75 miles walked with somewhere in the region of 2000’ of ascent and apart from a couple of drops of rain at about 9am, it stayed dry and was warm for the entire outing – quite unseasonably so!

Stuff, Nonsense and Mouldy Wet Dog

It may have been something of an error to go slogging on the penultimate day of our holiday.

By the very nature of slogging, our shoes got wet, and as the entire walk was below water level, they didn't get the chance to dry out during any subsequent walking.

Arriving at our hotel last night, the car already stank of wet shoes, but as our room had a balcony we thought it was to be a short-lived issue.

Alas, such was their wetness (and our lack of newspaper) that even an airy night of 20+ degrees wasn't enough to get them dry (and I'll gloss over the condition of the socks!).

Today has been mainly driving and, on the couple of occasions when we have left the car, we have been overwhelmed by the fumes when we have returned.

I just hope we can get those shoes dry tonight or I hate to think what our suitcase will be like when we get home.

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As an aside, we are now in Tarpon Springs, where the Greek bakery has made me wish that we had skipped Naples last night and headed straight up here. We've made a good effort on sampling the cakes in one sitting, but two days of cake eating would have been preferable. Yum!

M&G Go For A Slog

Mick's bites-the-size-of-small-countries had abated to more reasonable sizes this morning and I managed to convince him to go for a slog*.

We started off on the Florida Trail in the Big Cypress National Preserve, where, just for a look-see, we wandered an hour upstream before wandering an hour back. An interesting place, we declared, going through a mixture of open meadows and Cypress woodland, sometimes on dry land, sometimes through water.

Back at our starting point, and after lunch and a wash out of our shoes and socks (full of mud and silt), we wandered over the road where the going looked somewhat wetter.

Coming upon a college group being led by a ranger (who were stopped whilst one of their number tried unsuccessfully to locate her shoe which had been sucked off in some mud; she ended up limping back to the Visitor Centre) the ranger asked if we realised that we weren't on the Florida trail, but were on the 'Swamp Walk'. In all honesty, we didn't know where we were, but we were exactly where we intended to be.

Out to a stand of Cypress we waded, had a poke around, and waded back along different sloughs. It was less than an hour, but something very different to our usual walking (yes, we get wet feet in the UK, but not in such consistently deep or warm water.

(* slog = walking through the water, varying from ankle deep to thigh high, in the Everglades)

Slogging

This photo belongs with the next post. I'm having some Internet issues tonight (cheap motel = great Internet; chain hotel = almost unusable Internet) and can't transfer it to my iGadget to attach it to today's main post.

This was the deepest water in which we found ourselves today.

Shark Valley

Arriving at Shark Valley (a misleading name - no sharks and flat as far as the eye can see) this morning we had a choice: to take the 2 hour tram tour or rent some bikes and do 15-mile circuit under our own power. In favour of the tram was that it includes a ranger telling us about the history and wildlife, plus the trams have roofs and it was a rainy day. In favour of the bikes was that we wouldn't feel so lazy.

Bikes won the vote, and off we set, me on a single-gear sit-up-and-beg with pedal-back-to-stop and a fetching basket on the front. Mick was on a similar steed, but without the basket or the begging.

The road being entirely flat meant the bikes were perfectly fit for the job and within 45 minutes we had cycled though half an hour of rain and reached the observation tower which lies at the end of the road loop.

The views from the tower were a little curtailed due to the heavy shower that hit whilst we were there - but at least we were under cover for that one. (BTW it was 25 degrees out, so it was warm rain.)

The return leg of the journey was more interesting than the outward one, mainly for the far-reaching views (the outbound leg was mainly bush-lines), the wild-life and the fact the road wiggled (whereas the outward leg was almost dead-straight).

The headwind combined with a quiet protest from my knees during the final three miles, but I suppose the protest was understandable as that's the first time I've ridden 15 miles in my entire life! Mick reckons it's the first time he's ridden that distance in 43 years.

Jolly good fun it was too and undoubtedly more so than we would have had on a tram tour. We even agreed that the grey day and showers were in our favour. There would be no shelter to be had on a sunny day.

Shark Valley was followed by Big Cypress Preserve where there were so many 'gators present that they almost ceased to be interesting. It being the location where we had originally intended to go backpacking, I was interested to go and have a look at the trails. Mick, however, is sporting some insect bites the size of small countries and thus is harbouring a temporary phobia of areas involving both shade and water.

We're now in Everglades City (which isn't a city at all; they seem to like their misleading names in these parts!) where we received the worst welcome at our accommodation that I have ever experienced. A minor mar on another excellent day.

Vultures, Turtles and Ickle Baby Gators

Just a few photos today. I've been trying to type a post, but have lost patience with trying to type accurate and coherent sentences on a virtual keyboard.

I'll just point out that there is a turtle somewhere in the water shot, although it may not be too clear.

There is no photo of the ickle baby 'Gators, as I forgot to get the iGadget out.

Twas another good day (and silly hot).

(Note 1: I don't think the photos are going to land in this post in a logical order and I can't quite be moved to try to sort that.
Note 2: our car is the nicely wrapped Mini Clubman, not the sloppily wrapped vehicle being unwrapped by the vultures)

The Anhinga Trail

Having left Key West this morning, the Everglades was our destination. Having lugged our backpacking gear around with us all this time, our intention was to spend a couple of nights camping.

It was mid-afternoon by the time we entered the National Park, having spent a little while in the Visitor Centre talking to a ranger and taking in the exhibits, so we headed straight for the campsite, just 5 miles or so down the road. The ranger had gone into such detail as to tell us which pitch to try to get at the campsite, and that we wouldn't find it to be busy. She was quite right about it not being busy. Apparently nobody told her that its currently closed for refurb.

That threw us a bit, as we didn't really want to drive 34 miles further up a dead-end road to the next campsite, where the ranger has told us the mosquitoes were still out in force. To give us time to contemplate, we thought we'd go and walk the Anhinga Trail, which is less than a mile long, but (because of its location and route) is crammed full of wildlife.

We weren't disappointed. In fact, quite the opposite - it was absolutely fantastic, as much for the sounds as the sights (splash, flap, squawk, splash, flap, ROAR).

The sights were impressive, though. Both of the photos attached have 'gators in them. The one with the view actually has two within the frame (although I don't know how visible the second one is in this snap).

Whilst seeing wild 'gators on their natural habitat was the icing on the cake, we were just as taken with the fish (perfectly visible in the clear water) and the birds - moreover, the birds we witnessed catching fish. Top stuff!

We would have investigated another trail, but decided to go back in the morning to join the ranger led walk and to visit another couple of nature trails, so headed out to find accommodation.

Homestead is where Mick spent months at a time in the years before Hurricane Andrew flattened the place, and that's where we ended up. As much as it would have been nice to spend a couple of nights in the tent, I'm quite happy to be in a comfy bed again tonight. My only complaint about our chosen accommodation so far is that the walls seem not to be sound-insulative. Let's hope our neighbour doesn't fall asleep with the TV on - I need to be fresh as a daisy for more Everglades Oggling tomorrow!

Coast to Coast

We walked miles again today, including a yo-yo coast to coast.

The day started in the cemetery, which may seem an odd choice, but it came recommended. The only shame was that we didn't find the self-guide leaflets until we were leaving.

Then came the Eco-Discovery Centre, which we would have visited yesterday when we were right next door, except that it doesn't open on Mondays. It was there that Mick came perilously close to losing his Tilley Hat. Thankfully, we hadn't gone far when he realised, with some horror, its absence and back-tracked to find it. That hat has accompanied him over so many miles that it really would have ruined his day to lose it.

Then started our first coast to coast walk as we ambled up to the north coast before walking down for an obligatory photo at the official 'southernmost point in the Continental USA'. A bit like the sign post at John O'Groats, it's not actually at the most southern point - but it's almost as close as you can get without being on the prohibited land of the US Navy.

We then returned to the north coast (twice more, actually) before our day was over (and our day wasn't over until we'd gone significantly out of our way to a restaurant which turned out to be closed). I'll pop up a separate post about our final coastal visit of the day.

We're all done in Key West now so there's only one way to go: back north.

Sunset at Key West

On our third attempt we took no chances and arrived at the square with 45 minutes to spare. A good job we did too, as we had already missed the prime viewing spots. We quickly staked our claim to a sub-prime spot (but one that allowed us a view of some unicycle-riding-fire-jugglers) and by 15 minutes before the sun hit the horizon, people were many deep along the quay behind us.

As sure as eggs are eggs, the sun dipped behind the horizon. Maybe I was the only one there to find it odd and unnecessary that it got a cheer and round of applause for so doing. Am I missing something? Surely it's a natural event that happens every single day?

The snaps attached were taken with the iGadget, so please excuse any quality issues - the ones taken with the camera are definitely more colourful.

Zachary Taylor State Park and the Customs House

We've walked miles today and, my goodness, it was a hot one for walking anywhere.

Our starting point was to walk down to Zachary Taylor State Park, where the map they give you made it look like there was quite a distance of trails available to us. Having walked all of the trails (and, in fact, almost the entire circumference of the park) within 40 minutes, including a few stops to photograph the many iguanas, we headed over to the fort. The fort was well worth the park entrance fee on its own and we spent a good while poking around and learning about its history.

The Little White House (presidential residence/office, particularly of Harry Truman) came next on the agenda, once we finally found it, but that proved just to be a quarter of an hour of mild diversion (admittedly, we only looked at the free exhibition, rather than taking the tour).

Really feeling like I was melting I was pleased to see a 'Cool Inside' sign outside our next stop, which was the Museum of Art and History at the old Customs House. Usually, I'm not a fan of air-con, but today I relished our hour and a half or so in this chilled building. We didn't just loiter either; it was a thoroughly interesting and enjoyable place and worth every penny of the admission fee.

Our final intention today was to get down to Mallory Square to enjoy sunset and to see the street performers, for which the square is renowned. Alas, exactly the same as yesterday, we arrived about 10 minutes after the sun had set and just as the last entertainer was finishing up. A real shame, as there were no cruise ships in tonight to spoil the view to the west.

Continuing the theme of this holiday, we've extended our stay here by a night. The Everglades portion of this trip is looking more severely curtailed than ever. We should have booked a 4 week trip, rather than a mere 3.5!

(Today's lack of a photo was not a repetition of yesterday's operator error, but just a complete failure to get the iGadget out to take one.)

Bahia Honda State Park and Key West

Journeying down to Key West today we passed a number of state parks, but the one we opted to visit was Bahia Honda, which, from the descriptions I'd read, sounded like the most interesting. Alas, we found ourselves a trifle disappointed.

The entry fee was the same as for yesterday's park ($9), but it seemed to offer so much less. Certainly the views were stunning, but so they were from other points on the island too. And the 'walk onto the old railway bridge' was as short as the visitor centre was small.

Still, we whiled away a pleasant few hours in gorgeous hot weather, walked the nature trail and back along the beach, before overshooting the rest of our intended stopping-points for the day and heading straight down to Key West. Arriving late in the afternoon, we have done far more walking here than we did in the park, albeit most of it was in the dark and all of it was on the city streets. I'm not yet sure what to make of Key West, but I will say that if someone brought me here blind-folded and I had to guess where I was, I wouldn't think it was the USA.

We will explore further in daylight tomorrow.

(As for today's photo, Mick confirms that I did take one, but it seems that my inability to see the iGadget's screen in the bright sunshine made me miss hitting the 'take picture' icon. Please just imagine perfect seas, skies and palm trees.)

John Pennekamp State Park, A Geocache And Some Big Fish

Being 17 days into our Florida trip we should be embarking on a six day backpacking trip just about now. The plan had been to spend a week around Orlando, a week looking around the Keys and a week backpacking in the Everglades. The plan got altered in week 1 when I realised that 7 days at Disney just wasn't enough.

We did finally drag ourselves away to head south, arriving yesterday (Friday) at Key Largo.

The John Pennekamp State Park was first on the agenda for today and I had no idea what to expect. I certainly didn't expect it to be so educational a visit. As well as visiting the very informative visitor centre, and generally ambling around, we walked all 3 of the nature trails (two of which were a whole 1/2 mile in length!).

It was on one of the nature trails (which were variously mangrove or hardwood hammocks) that I spotted a couple walking around off-trail, smart-phone in hand, looking under various logs.

"They're looking for a Geocache" I said, and a few moments later (a few yards beyond where they were thrashing around) I saw a tell-tale trod. On our way back along the trail the couple had gone, so we dived off down the trod and within seconds Mick had spotted the cache location. That's now our 4th random Geocache find (but our first abroad). Being the first people to sign the log today, it appears that the couple, who were so obviously looking for it, missed the give-away path leading to its location.

With our park explorations declared complete, Robbie's Marina was our next stop, where we didn't indulge in a bucket of fish to feed the tarpon, but simply watched firstly the spectacle of the big fish swimming so close to the dock, and then the bigger spectacle of lots of other tourists feeding them. It was an impressive sight - and funny as people recoiled as the monster fish leapt out of the water, huge mouths agape, and headed straight for their fingers.

All that ambling had worked up an appetite, so after an hour sat on a swing looking out to sea (what a lovely colour of sea too) it was off for a big dinner and my first ever taste of Key Lime Pie.

A bit more State Park ambling may ensue tomorrow.